India didn't play beautiful football, nor did they win. They played rubbish football and deserved to lose. Simple.
Gunshots, flares, flags flying, horns blasting, people breaking into sudden jigs, youngsters turning up in truckloads, and policemen staring at all this with a smile on their faces.
All on 9/11, a date on which Afghanistan was christened a terrorist country. It couldn't get better for a country who didn't play at all between 1984 to 2002, and whose football stadiums would fill up with people wanting to see the Taliban execute someone.
Every member of the Afghanistan team is a hero - it's a fairy-tale run for them. Two years back, they lost 0-4 to India in New Delhi in the SAFF Cup final, and now, they've come back strongly to shock a lackluster and toothless Indian football team.
Shock is the term used, but if you have followed India's recent performances - you would have seen it coming. They lost 0-1 to Myanmar in March, 0-3 to Tajikistan in August and at the SAFF Cup: beat Pakistan 1-0, drew with Bangladesh 1-1, lost 1-2 to Nepal, beat Maldives 1-0 and lost 0-2 in the final vs Afghanistan. In February 2013, the Afghans were ranked 189th in the world - 22 places below India at that point. Now they're 139th, six places above India. It's been a nightmarish run for a supposedly upcoming team.
Add up all these facts and India's loss brings the country nothing but shame. Amid all the talk of hosting the 2017 Under-17 World Cup and a glamorous new league at home, the truth makes itself plain on the pitch - there is little hope for Indian football. And whatever little that is, is diminishing with every result.
Afghanistan, a country ravaged by by ethnic divisions, has managed to beat, as a fan told target="_blank">Al Jazeera, "an economic power house like India." It was surreal, watching Afghans of all backgrounds - Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras - praying for a common cause - victory.
It was their first football trophy, ever. And for a war-weary country, it's a phenomenal achievement. The team has been rising through FIFA's rankings over the last few years, but this caps an exciting moment in their history. Afghanistan as a nation have realised that sport is one of the most uniting forces in the world. Their cricket team recently beat India in the U-23 Emerging Cup tournament and their football team lost to India only on penalties in the U-16 SAFF Cup earlier this year.
While India took a meek and timid step backwards, last night's achievement was a giant leap forward for Afghanistan: "After 30 years of war, the world thinks of Afghanistan as only having wars and violence. Today, we are showing that our young men can become world champions," Khalid Sadat, a fruit-seller, was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald.
http://m.firstpost.com/sports/afghanistans-fairytale-saff-cup-win-is-indias-nightmare-1103065.html?page=2
